LOVELESS by ALICE OSEMAN : A REVIEW Cover Page for Alice Oseman’s novel ‘ Loveless’
Loveless by Alice Oseman is a young adult novel about a teenager named Georgia. She is eighteen years old and like any other teenager loves the idea of romance but only in fiction and theories. When she gets the chance to kiss her supposed school crush, she realizes she is different as she feels nauseated and backs out. But seeing everyone around her experiencing romance she decides that if she gives a bit of more effort then she can feel the same attraction. At the same time at the back of her head disgusted towards her friends who love experiencing sexual intimacy. Georgia is peer pressured by her friends to get into a relationship , go on dates, have her first kiss. This makes her realize how much our society runs after romance and sexual love. Right from a young age everyone is told that one of the main purposes in life is to fall in love, find a partner and get married someday.
“Everything was becoming so much clearer now. I’d never fancied anyone I had met—no boys, no girls, nobody at all. I really don’t understand what that means. What’s wrong with me?”
Georgia is aroace and the lead of Loveless : Source: Alice Oseman’s novel Loveless
Loveless is one of the very few novels which centers an aromantic asexual as the lead character. It explores her struggle to come to terms and understand her sexuality. After being confused and peer pressured as to why she is not comfortable with the thought of kissing or being with someone romantically, it is good to see her finding out that lack of attraction is indeed a part of sexuality as well. However, there are more cons in this book than there are pros and it is important to discuss them.
The characters of Loveless: Rooney, Georgia, Pip, Jason and Sunil. Source: A Boy With A Book
Throughout the story apart from her parents she is accompanied by her two school mates. One of them is Pip who is a masc leaning lesbian and Jason who is cishet. Three of them join Rooney who is Georgia’s roommate in her university to revive the university’s Shakespeare Drama Society. In the process Rooney and Pip get along through flirtations and feuds while Jason and Georgia try dating where Jason is the only one who is interested.
Georgia is repulsive towards sex. While it may be normal to feel so, the exaggerated portrayal of the disgust is a clear problem because it portrays the aroace experience in negative light. Her character very much feels like a monolith where she tries to center herself and cater to herself only when others are sharing their experiences. The portrayal is harmful because not every asexual aromantic person is sex or romance repulsed. This has not been thoroughly explored in the book. There have been many instances where Georgia has shown her interest in love and romance so it becomes really confusing when she comes off as rude to everyone who experiences the same after Georgia comes to terms with her sexuality.
Apart from Georgia, we have Rooney who also figures out her sexuality and comes out as pansexual. Rooney is known to be sleeping with others as a coping mechanism. Rooney is not very good and comfortable with confronting her feelings. The representation of Pansexuals is already very less and to represent pansexuality in the way Rooney has been portrayed does more harm than good. Being sex-positive is all good but using it to run away from your feelings and underlying problems is something that should not be encouraged.
Besides, the book has not defined what pansexuality actually means and many people will confuse it with being bisexual. The line, “She said she just doesn’t think she reallyhas a gender preference and that felt like the right word for her!!!!” , is not enough of an explanation for pansexuality and would put readers further into confusion.
Georgia’s constant feeling of superiority and invalidating other’s feelings put the character in a bad light. There was an instance in the book where Rooney talks about relationships and falling in love. To this, Georgia retorts back and I quote , “ stop erasing my identity”. The treatment of Georgia towards Rooney and dismissing her feelings doesn’t look good at all. Understandably, Georgia is tired of her feelings being dismissed all the time but being defensive and dismissing others simply expressing how they feel is not it. This is not only the first time Georgia has been shaming anyone and everyone who expresses their sexual and romantic feelings in the open. It’s one thing to be sex repulsed but to be disgusted at others who enjoy sex and romantic connections is simply rude and a sign of entitlement.
“‘This has to be a fucking joke,’ I blurted. Rooney paused. ‘What?’ I sat up, pushing the covers of my body. ‘Everyone has to be fucking JOKING.’ ‘What d’you–’ ‘People are really out there just … thinking about having sex all the time and they can’t even help it?’ I spluttered. ‘People have dreams about it because they want it that much? How the–I’m losing it. I thought all the movies were exaggerating, but you’re all really out there just craving genitals and embarrassment. This has to be some kind of huge joke.’”
Georgia yells as she continues to shame her roommate Rooney who shares some intimate details about her sex life. Georgia could have easily used these moments to talk about how exactly she feels and make them understand about aromanticism and asexuality instead of going around feeling offended by everyone who expressed feelings of love and romance.
Stereotypical representation of Pip who is a Latinx and the portrayal of the character Sunil is also an issue in the book. Rooney has a serious attitude problem. She refuses to
accept that people who have other sexual orientation do come with problems as well. When Pip explains to her how difficult it is to be a lesbian Latina, Rooney totally dismisses her worries and centers it around her saying “I would choose to be gay”. It’s not only disrespectful but hurtful as well because as a friend you are supposed to understand each other. Sunil is an Indian, non-binary, homoromantic asexual. Him and Georgia’s older cousin Ellis who is also aro-ace are nothing but emotional dumping grounds for Georgia and her experiences. The book might have a lot of representations but has failed to show a proper exploration of the intersectionality of identities. Many times we find Georgia being an aroace phobic internally while she was struggling to accept her identity.
Sunil who is also the president of Pride Soc comes in defense when the “college father” Lloyd who is a white cis gay man mocks the so-called made up internet identities. Being a gay man himself he is a representative of how discrimination exists within the LGBTQ+ community where people refuse to accept others and invalidate how they feel.
Georgia’s constant feeling of superiority has ruined a lot of good things in the book. Even when the message of platonic love is sent out she makes it appear like she is the only one capable of feeling like that. It gave the feeling that she genuinely feels that the ones who feel romantic and sexual feelings are incapable of feeling and experiencing platonic love.
Rooney as a character has been used as a scapegoat a lot of times . Why does her experiences of being in toxic relationships be used as an excuse to say that being in a platonic relationship is better than a romantic one. How is that even relatable and why does there have to be a comparison? Platonic love has its own speciality in itself and there is absolutely no reason to downplay someone else’s feelings to prove why it’s so much better.
Alice Oseman’s “Loveless” comes as a fresh breath of air for many and makes many seen and visible. It is a fast paced story about acceptance and being seen but there are also many things that need to be unpacked and not ignored.
Sources:
https://thereadingbookfairy.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/book-review-loveless-by-alice-oseman/ https://haunthill.medium.com/book-review-loveless-by-alice-oseman-57e426d28560 https://thelesbianreview.com/loveless-alice-oseman/
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